I couldn’t decide whether he was making a joke or not. Why would anyone want to talk about childbirth?
Maybe I’d see if the library had a book on it, instead.
Aside from Lidea’s cooing to the baby until he calmed, the room grew silent as Emil, one of the Soul Tellers, approached the bed with a small device. It was a soul-scanner, like those used around the city to restrict access to armories and other secret places.
“Baby soul-scanners?” I asked.
Stef nodded. “They’re new for the Soul Tellers, only fifty or so years old. Before that, Soul Tellers did blood tests, which were less reliable. They measured chemicals they believed the soul produced.”
I hmmed. Sam had once mentioned that certain tests hadn’t been reliable, and people would be called the wrong name until they were old enough to complain about it.
“Soul-scanners have been around much longer, of course,” Stef went on, “but they work by measuring vibrations of the soul inside the body. Newborns tend to have erratic and excited souls. It took a lot of work to get around that.”
“Huh.” Maybe they’d thought the scanner was broken when I was born, if the technology was that new. Maybe they’d tried three or four times, and with different scanners, just to make sure.
“Hold his hand still,” said Emil. “We should know in just a few minutes.” They pressed the baby’s palm against the scanner face and then tucked the blanket tighter. Being born must have been terribly shocking, and cold, but he stayed quiet, tucked against Lidea’s chest.
Everyone in the room stared at Emil, all anticipation and hope that this baby was their best friend who’d been lost the night of Templedark. The number of possibilities was staggering, but worse, underneath rode a current of fear: glances at me, muttered prayers to Janan, and objects clutched to their chest.
The last must have been things belonging to whomever they hoped would return. A box, a key, a silk fan.
Emil lowered the device and gazed around, eyes settling briefly on me. I tensed as another wave of anxiety passed through the silent room. “Is something wrong with him?” The words barely formed in my mouth, and Sam squeezed me, as if to caution.
“Who is he?”
Lidea’s expression twisted with worry. “Please just tell me.”
Emil faced her, his tone sober. “He’s a newsoul.”
8
NEWSOUL
I WASN’T ALONE.
I wasn’t the only one.
I wanted to be sick.
All eyes fell on me, and the first ones I saw were angry and accusing. Sam’s arms grew tight around me, ready to protect me from the inevitable storm. “Ana…”
Sam followed my gaze to the large man on the other side of the room, slowly standing, his glare locked on me. The man was enormous, with shoulders so wide he made Sam look small. Close-cropped brown hair made him look bald, and a few days’ worth of stubble darkened his face. His name was Merton; I’d seen him leading anti-newsoul speeches and complaints to the Council.
Anti-Ana speeches, because there was only me.
Until now.
“This is your fault.” He seemed bigger for all the rage building up beneath his words. As though anger were contagious, the room began to boil with it. “Meuric was right. Li was right. This one was only the beginning of replacements. Now Lidea has borne another.”
On the bed, Lidea stared at the infant in her arms, like she wasn’t sure what to do now. Tears trickled down her sweat-streaked face.
“Nosouls will replace everyone,” someone in the back shouted. Panic pitched his voice high, and then it was lost under the wave of suspicion-filled mutters.
“We’re being invaded!” Merton shouted.
A small cry of agreement went up, hesitant at first, gaining voices swiftly.
“When sylph infest the city,” Merton roared, “what do we do? Capture them and send them beyond Range.”
People nodded emphatically. A few cheered.
“When centaurs hunt in our forests,” Merton went on, “we drive them out with gas that erodes the bonds holding together their two aspects.”
My stomach dropped, but Merton held everyone’s rapt attention. He looked just as eager to say what they were all waiting to hear.
“Now we need to learn to defend ourselves against this new threat.”
He thought of us as monsters. This baby who’d barely drawn breath, and me. Several people thundered agreement. With Merton as the conductor, the shouts and rage crescendoed.
The baby wailed, and Lidea held him close, but she wept too. My friends yelled in my defense, and the birthing assistants ordered people to leave the room. No one obeyed. People kept shouting and pointing, pressing closer to me as the scowls and glares deepened. They practically burned.
Their heat filled me, leaving no room for disbelief or shock. How could I be shocked when some of these people had treated me with nothing but hatred?